I myself am completely stumped as to why white men in particular commit suicide so often, so you won't get a very zealous response for me. Although I'm not sternly sure of any of them, I do have a few guesses as to why:

There is much more social pressure on white men to become "successful," which comes with much more social consequences for failure or having a very limited income for into adulthood.
Perhaps people in communities that are more dangerous appreciate safety and self-preservation?
In American White culture, happiness, or "success" is often defined on material possession, which according to many psychologists, is not the key to happiness(APA).
White culture in the United States appears to be less social and more individualistic. Personally, I've observed that in Hispanic and Black neighborhoods people seem to know each other better.

I really don't know, but I find it to be an interesting sociology question, and because I don't have a strong opinion, I think that this should be a very interesting conversation.

This is per 100,000 people. That means that having a higher population will NOT cause a group to have a higher suicide rate based on how these statistics were taken. Stop saying that it's because there are more white people.

White people make up 72% of the American population. Hispanics/latinos are next with a whopping 16.3%. Its no wonder that out of 300+ million people, whites have the highest suicide rate. These are 2010 census numbers. Blacks are actually third with 12.6%

White people make up 72% of the American population. Blacks are next with a whopping 12.6%. Its no wonder that out of 300+ million people, whites have the highest suicide rate. These are 2010 census numbers.

I think self-esteem is a huge factor. When people see a black janitor they generally think "He's making the best of life that he can." and "He's humble and taking care of his family.". When people see a white janitor, they think "He's probably an alcoholic, maybe he's a little drunk right now." and "He probably made some really bad decisions when he was in college.".

Even if a white person is doing well, however, it seems that there's constantly a pressure to keep doing better and not be satisfied with what you have, and if a white person claims to want to just "be happy with what they have," people immediately think that it's just an excuse because they failed to be "the big wheel."

It's because they can't dance, you know what I'm sayin? Too many nights getting overplayed by the dancing minorities and he gets depressed for not getting his honeybuns, knowm sayin'? When too much rejection + job stress and all that comes to play, crackaz just wanna pop, gnome sayin?

Probably a sense of entitlement that causes them to get pissy when things go badly.

But you know, that's natural selection in action, as cold as that sounds.

Also, with the world economy as shit as it is, (middle class) whites lost the most wealth, which can drive otherwise happy people to suicide when their decent standard of living gets obliterated by Wall Street's bad behavior.

If it were a race that normally did poorly economically, this wouldn't be a discussion. The fact that it's the race that normally did the best economically that's committing suicide is what makes it interesting.

Statistically, people with higher IQs are more likely to commit suicide than people with lower ones.
Also statistically, white people have a higher IQ than most minorities.

note that I'm not implying that white people are inherently smarter, it's an environmental thing.

Perhaps. White people tend to have more time, and people with a lot of time think deeply about certain things, which can lead to depression. Many philosophers, such as Otto Weininger have committed suicide.

Average white person does better then the average not white person so when a white person fails they look at other white people and see how well off they are so they think that they are so far off as losers and failure they kill themselves.

It seems that, in general, affluence is the strongest argument here as others have said.

When a good portion of things are going well and have went well your entire life, it gives you more to focus on in the negative, whereas if you're struggling to survive, you learn to be happy with what you have. That, and the "You're not all you can be" argument. I'm under constant pressure to be the first person in my family to go to college and such.

You may say "first world problems", but you can't really get mad at people for having those problems when they are the only problems a person has known.